Divinity II: Ego Draconis Review - PC

Game Description:In Divinity II: Ego Draconis, players find themselves once again in Rivellon, a timeless world full of awe and magic, shattered and frightened by the apocalyptic wars of the past. No one knows why so many people had to give their lives. Everything seems to be over, but the peace was deceptive, for the demon has returned and the horror once again runs its course.
Players begin as a Dragon Slayer, hunters whom travel the countryside determined to rid their lands of Dragons. As the story of Divinity II: Ego Draconis unfolds, the player will discover new abilities and possibilities as they evolve into a legendary Dragon Lord. In addition, the player character's abilities can be steadily improved over the course of the game and specialized in specific areas. The world of Divinity II: Ego Draconis is filled with humans and fantasy creatures, each having special combat abilities. Players will need to use every skill, potion and hidden trick to their strategic advantage to reclaim the lands of Rivellon.

Divinity II: Ego Draconis Review

While the creators of Divinity II: Ego Draconis should be applauded for trying to make a deep and epic fantasy role-playing game, they really should have tried harder to make the basic mechanics work first. Basic combat feels dull and uninspired, while ranged combat is difficult to control.

The Pros

You get to be a dragon (eventually)

Deep class customization

Kicking chickens: +1 XP

The Cons

Map navigation is a mess

Disappointing combat

Annoying targeting

With the ability to go from 0 to 60 in 2.6 seconds, top speeds in excess of 253 miles per hour and a sleek design that makes it look like something from the not-so-distant future, the Bugatti Veyron is a marvel of mechanical engineering that might just be worth its $1,700,000 price tag. Well, unless the spark plugs are bad. Or the starter is faulty. Then you just have a very pretty, very expensive paperweight. The point is, if you don't get the basic mechanics right, it doesn't matter what you layer on top of it.

It's a lesson I'm hoping the makers of Divinity II: Ego Draconis learn, and learn fast. Although they've created a game that's grand in scope and deep in options, fundamental problems derail the entire thing, turning this game into, well, a lemon.

Divine Intervention

Having recently graduated Dragon Slayer University (“Go Badgers!”), you are almost ready to go out into the real world and slay some dragons. But when a battle with one goes horribly awry, you find yourself newly empowered with the ability to turn yourself into a dragon (oh, irony). You then set out to master your new skills so you can rid the world of an evil Dragon Knight.

Such begineth Divinity II: Ego Dragonis, a fantasy action/adventure role-playing game that, with an emphasis on adventure over action, is decidedly more like Oblivion than some Baldur's Gate dungeon crawler. It comes complete with all the trappings: numerous main and side quests, random battles, looting, chatting up strange women (and men, and beasts), sweeping classical music, British accents…the whole lot.

Admittedly, the game adds a few interesting wrinkles to its well-worn formula. The most obvious is that whole “turning into a dragon” thing, of course. The biggest feature and the one that might get ripped off by other RPGs, is that you're not locked into a single class. Instead, you can pick and chose abilities from a variety of disciplines to create your own hybrid career (though, at first, you are limited to a single style of combat). The game also lets you read people's minds, which means not only can you find out when they're lying to you, but this reveal can help you gain quests you might otherwise have missed, as well as give you different ways to complete certain quests. Mind reading isn't free; however, doing it takes experience points, and while you won't go down a level, it will take you longer to rank up if you constantly probe people's thoughts.

Unfortunately, these additions don't mask what is basically a flawed game.

For starters, the combat in Divinity II isn't very good. Using the sword may be effective, but it lacks any visceral thrill because you never feel like you're actually hitting anything. Ranged weapon or magic attacks are also faulty since the game's targeting reticule is so oversensitive and has such a small area of contact that it is rather difficult to aim accurately. Adding insult to injury, the targeting reticule is also used to pick up items, choose who you want to talk to, and other actions. That means the simplest of tasks can be rendered unnecessarily difficult.

The health system is also problematic, more so if--like me--you're accident prone. While health can be restored with food or potions, both do so rather slowly, which gives your enemies time to inflict more damage before you get healthy. You also can't eat or drink more than one item at a time, so if you're in the middle of a battle, you have to wait for the first piece of cheese to work before eating another one.

Then there's the balancing issue. Some enemies are real wimps, but sometimes they attack en masse, with a couple of guys tossing things at you from a distance for good measure. Other enemies, especially bosses, are far stronger than their level would have you believe -- and they often attack en masse as well. As a result, even the most minor of skirmishes can be majorly annoying. Thankfully (especially in light of the infrequent checkpoints) you can -- and should -- save whenever you like. Still, be prepared to die. A lot. And needlessly.

The map is also rather useless. For starters, neither the world map nor the one on your HUD will tell you where to go for any side quests, even when the side quest involves going somewhere you've been. The map can give you a location if the locale is connected to the main quest -- though given the map's muted color palette, you'll have trouble finding anything on it -- but even then, it's just on the world map. It doesn't add any kind of directional indication to the map on your HUD. And while you can add a marker on the world map, which will put a directional arrow on the HUD map, this only works if you put the marker on a specific place. If, for example, you place a marker on a pathway, it doesn't put an arrow on the HUD map.

If it sounds convoluted, it is. It's almost as if the team intentionally made Divinity II's navigation counter-intuitive in an attempt to weed out all but the most hardcore adventure fans. Not that you're rewarded for making your way through. The story is epic, for sure, but it feels padded out in areas, and really slow in others. Because of this, you'll probably grow bored of it long before you actually get to be a dragon (assuming, of course, you haven't already quit because of the aforementioned issues).

Mondo Trasho

While the creators of Divinity II: Ego Draconis should be applauded for trying to make a deep and epic fantasy role-playing game, they really should have tried harder to make the basic mechanics work first. Basic combat feels dull and uninspired, while ranged combat is difficult to control. Enemy balancing doesn't do you any favors, either, since enemies are individually weak but tough in large groups. Adding insult to injury, the world navigation is a mess. Because of these issues, Divinity II doesn't feel so much epic as just really, really, really long.

Comments are Closed

I just picked it up (DIVINITY II for $18.00 at GAMESTOP. (below bargin bin level) It is so far not as bad as Adam made it out to be. Just too picky he was on that review. And I have 80-100+ 360 games. And 25-30+ PS3 games some duplicates of the 360. Just in case of loss of system fail.

The only thing I agree on this review is the targeting. If you want an RPG that holds your hands throughout the game then this is not for you. Those that are interesting buy Divinity II: Dragon Knight Saga (PC version most preferred), as it comes with the main story Ego Draconis as well as Flames of Vengeance addon and includes several graphical and gameplay improvements.

This guy has been playing too much oblivion and too little gothic. All the things he said about the map, the hud, the levels and strategy of enemies and how you regain health he sees them as a design problem, I see it as challenging gameplay and fun. Hell, in morrowind you didn't have the arrow pointing the every direction and it was a great game, in gothic 1 and 2 the combat system was a clumsy mess but they were great games, in gothic 3 the enemies attacked you in mass and it was fun trying to stay alive in every fight. Its a shame someone would write such an objective review and make people not buy a game just because he`s grown accustomed to dumb down easy games.

I may have just skimmed through this review a bit too fast, but I see no mention of which specific platform this was performed on, PC version may be better since usually the differences are night and day on certian ports like this.. Could also be muck worse though : / Anyway just something too keep in mind.

Ok, for those who liked Two Worlds (there are those that do), this game is fine. I have it and I like it. When the price comes down it would be a good buy. When Mass Effect 2 comes out....well this will be forgotten for sure.

Wth do you mean you don't like 5 star systems? They are much more simple than 10. 5: Great must buy, 4: Good check it out, 3: Decent has it's good has it's bad 2: Mediocre not really worth your time, 1: Sucks don't bother trying.

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